Notorious
by Joannaroo
Summary: Scarlett O'Hara was the best in the business...until a series of scandals dethroned the former Queen of Pop from her rightful place atop the charts. As she reflects upon her tumultuous life, she makes plans for a comeback... but is it too late?
1. Chapter 1

_Welcome! As a "newbie" to Fanfiction, I must first begin with a disclaimer. This story was inspired, of course, by brilliant Margaret Mitchell and her beloved characters. Although this is a modern take, you will see some of the original plot intermingled within this story. Anything you see that belongs to the Mitchell Estate is clearly not mine. I hope you will enjoy, and I look forward to your thoughts! _

1. Scandal

I took a sip of my vodka infused cranberry juice.

When I saw the news-crews and the paparazzi gathered outside my house, I knew that my end had come. I just hope that they're gone before Rhett gets back from his yacht race in Saudi Arabia. The truth of the matter is, I just hope that he doesn't get internet service in Saudi Arabia - because this is going to be the story of the summer.

I put the glass down and pick up the bottle of vodka instead. It's half-gone…the bottle that had been full when I woke up this morning.

I step away from the window half-blinded by the flash photography and turn on the flatscreen on the wall to see if E! has the story yet.

This is the headline:

_**Breaking News: **_**Oops. I Did It Again. Pop Princess caught red handed with Christian Crooner.**

In front of the news desk sit three entertainment analysts around the show's host, Kessler Carson, who was wearing the same expression he had when reporting on say, Princess Diana's car crash. Grim death. "This is the story of the day, guys," Kessler said.

Well, at least not the summer, I think to myself.

"…If not the major entertainment news story of the summer," he finishes.

Shit.

"If you're just joining us folks, let's take it from the top. A major news story for both the entertainment community broke this morning at 4:30 AM Pacific Time - TMZ first broke that a source close to the Wilkes camp confirmed that Ashley Wilkes _will_ be issuing a statement via his manager. Sources quote a member of Ashley Wilkes's family as stating that this is a private matter and a deeply personal one; however, we are told that Ashley and Melanie Wilkes will be making a joint statement today - the pair was due to appear at a charity concert to benefit homeless teens today, and all sources indicate that the concert will still take place."

I don't want to hear it, and jam down the channel button of the remote to CNN.

We're the top story there too. If only Rhett's yacht had sunk. Been attacked by Saudi pirates. Anything.

"If you've been living under a rock," the silver-haired commentator was smirking at me, "…you might have missed the turbulent storm of rumors and scandal which have inextricably followed troubled starlet Scarlett O'Hara since she first broke onto the music scene at the age of sixteen. She scored six platinum hits and a host of Grammy's and other awards. Unfortunately the former sensation has gone through rough patch after rough patch. After two whirlwind marriages and a bitter divorce, her remarriage to music mogul Rhett Butler seemed to be a fairytale, at least outwardly - although the nighttime exploits of the famous duo have provided fodder for tabloids and news media alike. After a truly dismal and alcohol-laden performance at this year's VMA's, there was speculation of rehab for the troubled songstress - however, we have learned this morning of an alleged phone call leaked to TMZ and posted on their website which has been validated as evidence of a years-long affair with the Golden Boy of Christian rock, Ashley Wilkes."

Ashley's face flashed on screen, his smile big as his wife, Melanie, was holding onto his arm like the "Golden Boy of Christian Rock" could provide God's own protection.

There was nothing said about Melanie. Oh no. She might as well have been the Virgin Mary - never mind that she and Ashley had a six-year-old son. Perhaps he'd been immaculately conceived. Or maybe he's really mine and she took him to raise, I think, trying to turn off the TV before I throw the remote at it. I fail to get it off, so settle for turning the volume down.

There's really brilliant June sunlight coming in through the window, and it's all I can do not to cry. Okay. The alcohol might not be helping.

From down the stairs, comes a yell. "Jesus Christ, chile! What'd that crap on the TV for? Miss Scarlett!"

I jerk my eyes open. "Mammy, quit shouting goddamnit! I've never in my whole life slept with Ashley and if he tells everybody I did then he's a dirty damn liar."

"You've been drinkin'! Ah's done tole you all your life 'bout the evil in dat there bottle - and you's drinkin' in the mornin' like some no-count 'ho!"

I look over to where she's standing, which takes some effort on my part.

"Don't you ever speak to me like that again or by God, you'll be out on the street!"

Mammy's head pitches back to look up at me. "Ah knows you's hurtin', chile, but I'll never understand why you's done killin' yo'self this way."

The phone rings. It's Mother.

The news keeps repeating my life story behind me.

_Scarlett O'Hara was born in 1987; the oldest daughter of renowned Metropolitan Opera soprano Ellen Robillard O'Hara and Gerald "Gerry" O'Hara, Irish tenor and fiddler and member of the popular trio, Sons of Erin. The couple have been divorced since 2003. _

"Don't get it," I warn Mammy. "Pa'll be next, but I don't want to talk to him either."

"He ain't callin'," Mammy grunts. "Mist' Gerald's recordin' a song with what's-his-name."

Right. Pa was playing fiddle for Mick Jagger's flirtation with Celtic rock. I forgot.

"There!" Mammy points to the TV.

There's a black SUV coming to a halt at some community center downtown. I don't bother turning up the volume; I know who it is.

The paparazzi not staked out at my house where surrounding the car for the hundred thousand dollar shot, then moved back slightly as the driver opened the door. Then they came.

Ashley and Melanie. They both wore jeans and coordinating white-and-navy shirts. I try to read their faces for fear, humiliation…anything.. But all I can sense is that Ashley is relieved to be somewhere - or maybe he's relieved to have her by his side.

"Melanie! Melanie!" I hear members of the press shouting. She grabs hold of his hand and waves with her free one. A friendly greeting. As if she's there for a perfectly normal charity event.

Then, they walked into the community center and a strong looking black man said, "That's all, folks." As the glass doors shut behind them, they disappeared from sight.

And so I and all of America had seen it; that was all there was to see.

Melanie had managed to diffuse the situation without saying a damn thing.

I wanted to hate her. Passionately hate her for stealing the man I loved from me. But something was lacking in my hate. Perhaps it was the disappointing lack of drama. They were back to my teenage years now - my Grammy victories - and losses.

I was a shoe-in for Best New Artist in 2003.

My single _Little Green Dress_ was top of the charts for 23 weeks and counting. And little miss mealy-mouthed Melanie showed up with her H&M dress and her shoes from Goodwill, which looked like they were from Goodwill, by the way - she had recorded an album on Ashley's independent label, which did mainly his trademark Jesus-Pop-Rock stuff. It was her and her piano, and the critics said that she had the sweetest voice coupled with the most mature vocal range they had ever heard, and that teen poptresses like Scarlett O'Hara should take note. And that kind of criticism stays with you…or at least, it did with me.

"Miss Scarlett, you ansa' that phone or I swe'a to Gawdalmighty-"

My two older kids are looking curiously our way, having overheard her outburst.

Hopefully not the news…not yet, anyway.

"Do something with them," I tell her. Not wanting them to think that something is any more seriously wrong with me than normal, she whirls around and takes them by the arm - one on each side - and steers them toward the kitchen. She'll light up a Virginia Slim and eat a candy bar for stress relief when she thinks she's alone; as for the kids, she'll set them in front of the downstairs TV with a crap-load of ice cream. Sure-fire way to shut them up for a couple of hours.

I answer the phone. "Hello, Mother."

"What happened?" she asks in a low voice. "Philippe and I are in San Maritz for the weekend… but Suellen left a message for me at the concierge desk to turn on the news and I haven't been able to, yet - there's been something terrible happening, she said. Did someone die? Your father? I told him for years to give up smoking, but-"

"It's _not_ Pa."

"Oh. Well that's a relief."

She doesn't sound relieved.

"Mother, I have to go."

"Scarlett? Scarlett, listen to me. What's happening there that you aren't saying? You've not been in another accident, have you?"

I wish it was only that.

"Nope."

"Is it something with Rhett?"

"Nope."

Not yet anyway. Unless he kills me when he gets home…

"Well, the Oscars are tomorrow; don't forget."

Oh shit.

I had forgotten about the Oscars. I'm supposed to present the award for Best Original Song. Melly is the favorite to win. Some ballad she sang for some movie Ashley has a small part in. I think it's about the Civil War, but I'm not sure.

"Scarlett, Philippe was telling me that he knows a charming man from Universal…he'd be happy to make you an introduction."

"I'm not recording anything now, Mother."

"Well, Rhett has been a terrible manager. If you'd had any sense, you would have stayed on Frank's label after the divorce."

"I don't want to see Frank, Mother. Or talk about him or anything else."

"Well, there's always Ashley's label…"

"I don't want to talk about Ashley, Mother."

"What do you mean, you don't…Scarlett, what is the matter with you? What have you eaten this morning?"

"It's ten o'clock, Mother; I just poured myself a glass of cranberry juice."

"And what was the ratio of vodka to cranberry, my dear?"

Mother can always tell. Even on the phone.

"Mother, just watch the news. You'll understand it all then."

"I will, but not now. Philippe's ready to go parasailing. I'm not, naturally. No, I have a massage at ten. And then lunch with darling Cindy Mc-"

"Okay," I say, wanting to tell her that I could give a shit, but restraining myself. Because it's not her fault that she's happy with Husband #2, who in all fairness should have been Husband #1. Fortunately for me, he wasn't. Fortunately for her, she's living in married bliss with the love of her life - and it's not her fault any more than it's mine for living in perpetual hell because Ashley (…who should have been my Husband #1) is happy with his skinny twit of a wife.

"I love you, darling."

"Goodbye, Mother."

Click.

Bitch! I think to myself. But Mother's not a bitch. Hardly. She just thinks that I'm the sort of girl who doesn't need comforting, soothing words.

Who am I to judge her for making something good out of her life..? When all I am good for is attracting negative headlines: alcoholic, husband stealer…total shit at everything. No career. And no husband, for that matter! I look up at the digital clock. He's been gone eighteen days. Of course he has.

And I have an oncoming migraine and an upset stomach.

Mammy's pounding on the bedroom door again, but I ignore her.

Instead, I choose a fistful of pills, which I wash down with a gulp of vodka straight from the bottle.

Here's to you, Ashley and Rhett, I think to myself.

It's my last coherent thought before I close my eyes…and try to remember something pleasant. But all I can muster are memories from the 2003 Grammy's…

Makes sense. That's the day I met Melanie. (…and Rhett.)


	2. Chapter 2

**Finally back in the writing mode. Reviews are loved, y'all. :)**

2.

Ashley is standing there in the backstage holding area; his hair, parted neatly to one side. His hands are in his pockets and his head is hanging toward the ground because I've caught him. I finally, finally caught him.

He's scared to say one word to me and I don't blame him, because he was supposed to be _my_ boyfriend, _my _date to my first Grammy Awards. The person _I _thanked in my acceptance speech when I won for best new artist.

But I didn't win.

The Grammy or the boyfriend.

I am the sucker in this.

As if I needed confirmation, since this has been happening to me since before I had boobs.

From the moment I discovered the opposite sex, I managed single-handedly to snare the most alluring of the availables. As my mother is fond of saying, I have already snared them by the time I see the tornado coming.

First there was sweet Cade Calvert, who gave me a valentine card in the seventh grade. He had painstakingly written out: Dear Scarlett, whats your secret? Your eyes look like rainbows.

That declaration of love had guaranteed me happiness throughout summer vacation.

Then came the hearts over the 'i's of my sloppy cursive handwriting: Mrs. Scarlett Fontaine.

That was my eighth grade boyfriend, a high school sophomore. I lived to watching him play basketball. He kissed me under the Clayton County High School bleachers.

When I transferred to a private, all girls Catholic High School, I had already signed my first recording contract. It had helped having parents in the business, but that was beside the point. I already had a major crush on Ashley Wilkes, the second-youngest artist on the label, and had waited all summer just to see him. The one with the grey eyes, alluringly sensitive.

I could see in Ashley some kind of long lost knightly gallantry that was absent in the rest of the male population...and he could sing. What's better, he spoke in the same voice he sang with, which naturally meant that we were soul mates. Ideal husband material.

For him, I relentlessly practiced my music. I payed attention to my voice coach and my piano instructor and learned how to smile so that the camera would make me look both sexy and vulnerable. I'd pout my lip slightly and Mother shook her head, saying softly to Mammy one night that I was the image of 'sexual awakening'.

My lessons in making myself appealing had begun when I was nine, when Mother convinced herself that it was my destiny to be famous. I'm sure it was frightening to my father, who took the cigarette out of his mouth long enough to mumble in his Irish drawl over his whiskey: "Over me dead body".

But Mother wouldn't be stopped. And I was a good student.

It even got me Ashley. My soul mate. The one guy I believed I could trust.

And now I've lost him. Running his hands through that hair the color of cornsilk, waiting for her.

He told me not more than ten minutes before I was set to sing, live and on national television – he's giving up performing to follow his dream of moving to Nashville and producing a folkgrass record. Yes, that is folkgrass. Neither folk nor bluegrass, but a marriage between the two. He's going to buy a mandocello, an instrument he has never played and I have never even heard of, in order to learn it because SHE plays it.

He is leaving me.

He's leaving me for her.

I turn to the left and there she is, trying to get my attention.

It's her, Melanie Hamilton, the dark horse unknown who stole my Grammy right out from under my nose. She's dressed in a tremendous white gauze dress and mousy, shoulder length hair which just hangs there limply...like she forgot to wash it.

"The truth is, Scarlett," Ashley takes my hand after an eternity. "I've been seeing a lot of Melanie and I like her. I really, really do."

He doesn't take his eyes off her as she walks toward us, looking tiny in her gauze dress.

"Scarlett, I just wanted to say how flattered I am that we were in the same category."

Bitch. She's clearly mocking me.

"I hope that you'll come and stay with Ashley and I in Franklin."

"When we move to Tennessee," he repeats again.

When _we_ move. For a moment, I feel confused and wonder what I'm supposed to do with this information. Am I supposed to slap the skinny bitch for stealing my boyfriend from right under my nose? Should I fight? Kick and scream? Do I even waste energy on opposing it at all, since clearly, Ashley has it all figured out?

"What happened to Nashville?" I manage.

"Franklin is much less expensive," Melanie clarifies, the big smile still plastered on her tiny face. "It's not far outside the city, if you've ever been."

"Scarlett doesn't leave Atlanta when she's not on tour," Ashley smiles indulgently, as if he's relating a detail about a much loved dog.

Melanie grins. "I hope that you'll take me up on a visit, Scarlett. I'd love to show you my studio, my parents' place in Nashville. It's such a great town."

"You still live with your parents?" It's immaterial that I still live with mine.

"Not exactly. My parents both passed when my brother and I were young. My aunt and uncle raised us. Oh, Ashley, that's a thought – we can introduce Scarlett to Charlie. Now _that_ is a thought!"

I don't know Charlie. I don't care to know Charlie. I just want to strangle her.

"Well, goodbye, Melanie," I say, not having the heart to offer her congratulations.

I walk away from them and find the first available empty room backstage.

Ashley follows me.

"You look like you'd like to hit me."

I shake my head, will the tears not to come.

"You can yell at me if it would make you feel better. Tell me that you hate me and that you're disappointed and never wish to see me again."

I shake my head, trying to walk past him.

"It's not you, Scarlett. It's me."

I stop dead in my tracks.

"Oh really?" I spin around, nearly tripping on my floor length dress. "And that's supposed to make it okay that it's just _you_ and not _me?! _I thought that you _loved_ me, Ashley!"

"Did I ever say that?"

"You...led me on."

"Did I?"

"Yes."

"I see. Well, it is me, Scarlett. You are lovely. But you have also just turned sixteen and you haven't the faintest idea of what love is or what life is, for that matter. Melanie is much more...well...like me."

"Like you. Like. You. You're twenty-two, Ashley. Twenty-two. That's six years older than me!"

"Yes. It is. It's a lifetime."

I shake my head. "But why _her_?"

He stands there, quietly stroking his chin.

"You're a star, Scarlett. I'd only be holding you back. Embrace it, honey."

I nod my head. "Get out."

He turned to go, then said with a sigh. "It might have been different if..."

"If?"

He sighed again. "Nothing. Goodbye, Scarlett."

He shut the door behind him.

"Excuse me. I would be remiss if I didn't clarify something for you. I do believe that the elegant Ashley Wilkes meant to say that yes, it is mostly you." An eye peeks out from behind a purple curtain that I hadn't noticed.

It's followed by a second eye, which turns out to be part of a man's suntanned face. His sideburns were a little long for my liking and he should have seriously rethought the mustache (pedostache), which marred the otherwise decent face.

He was smiling, and his tuxedo was painfully neat, as if he'd not been sitting in the hot, crowded theater for a four hour award show at all.

Appearances aside, he was spying on me. I felt my eyes narrow.

"Mostly _me_?!"

"Yes. Well, I suppose it could be him a little bit. But if you'd really like to know, I would say that yes, it is mostly you. Actually," he sizes me up like a seasoned costumer before a performance, "I don't think it's him at all. No, no, it's all you. That's the feeling I'm getting."

"Just who do you think you are?!"

"Hold on, I'm still giving you advice. The wheels in that shrewd little head are turning, I can see. You're trying to figure out how to win him over. You are thinking that he couldn't have been serious, that he's eccentric, a lovable oddball. Well, he is. And he's looking for a codependent nurturer, not a little firecracker like you."

"What the hell?!"

"That's what I'm talking about. Ashley Wilkes will stay just like he is this very day, no matter what life throws at him, and in twenty years, he'll be putting out the same cookie-cutter hits he puts out now and you know why? He lacks passion. Creativity."

"You don't even know him!"

"I know him enough to size him up as an artist. And I know you, too."

"I've never seen you before in my life."

"Unsurprising. I've seen you plenty of times. And plenty of you." He leered at the slit of my dress, which is flashing more thigh than I thought while singing on stage.

"Oh yeah?" I yelled.

"Oh yeah." He replied assertively. "And I'll look forward to seeing you again. Rise like a phoenix, Miss O'Hara."

"Go to hell, whoever you are!"

I barreled past him, but his roaring laugh rang in my ears all the way down the hall.


End file.
